


The Brim of a Straw Hat

by BACHIRAGF



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Family, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Found Family, Heartwarming, One Shot, Self-Indulgent, luffy i love u, this is all no plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24862960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BACHIRAGF/pseuds/BACHIRAGF
Summary: On the Grand Line, fighting chaos with chaos is absolutely crazy. It’s out of question. It’s against the laws of nature.Luffy, whose body is a force that pushes against all normal laws of nature, and who never fails to spring back, flips the Grand Line upside down and paints his name all over it.Or, a look at the Strawhat crew on the Grand Line. (The in-between-the-lines)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 52





	The Brim of a Straw Hat

The Grand Line became the Strawhat’s territory.

They’re became scarily used to it—irregular weather, the storing of log poses, the feverous “can’t step foot on an island.” disease Usopp insisted was real. (Chopper knew it wasn’t, but he asked Sanji to prepare Usopp a drink any way because he was aware it soothed his nerves.) It was like the Grand Line was the longest, most difficult, impossible to study for exam they’d ever taken. Zoro insisted that _maybe_ Nami had been taking the wrong route this whole time, which was, albeit relatively stupid and meathead-ed of him, enough to make Nami flip the boat upside down as she grappled at him. 

The Strawhats become the epitome of chaos on the Grand Line, because _who even expected them to last this long?_ They were a group of a ragtag pirates with nothing but a beat up ship to their name and a crew of the most batshit-crazy pirates on earth. 

Nami insisted on denting their skulls every time they celebrated a brand new bounty—Luffy hitting 30 million beli, and then 100 million, and then the ship’s flag becoming a symbol of utter chaos. 

“It’s nothing to celebrate,” she’d say, folding her arms and pinning Luffy with that same condescending stare she always gave him. (There was quite a bit of fondness in it, though.) “You’ll just have more people after you.”

“Yup.” Luffy would reply, grinning to the brink of his face. Nami always felt like someday his skin might split if he smiled too wide. It was like it stretched _beyond_ his face—some kind of wild phenomenon that came with being a monster and a devil fruit user. “Isn’t that exciting?”

(Somewhere on the deck, Usopp would faint. Nami would smack Luffy, and Chopper would yell from the deck for Sanji to bring him his medical bag once again.) 

Decidedly, the Grand Line’s calmer days became the most valued ones. 

Nami consistently scolded Usopp on taking it easy, because, “These waters aren’t forgiving, you long-nosed idiot!” and yet she had perched herself on the edge of the railing to gaze at the lull of the waves with some sort of half smile etched across her face. 

(Usopp thought vaguely about arguing with her. He was also not an asshole, however, so he let her reminisce on whatever was running through her mind and set to work on polishing his goggles.)

Luffy would stretch his arms far and wide and propel himself across the lengths of the ship until Chopper woke up—and then Usopp and Luffy and Chopper would gather in a circle with whatever gimmick they had planned for the day. Sometimes, it was robbing Sanji’s kitchen of supplies so that they would be able to eat. Other times, it was hanging from the posts of the ship like bats—or mimicking Zoro’s meditation, or pinching the tangerines from Nami’s trees. 

Sometimes, Luffy would lay down and bask in the sun, and Usopp and Chopper would join him. They’d close their eyes and fall asleep under the warmth. 

The ship would be quiet—save for the clatter of dishes in the kitchen, and Zoro’s huffs and puffs as he finished his rounds of push-ups for the hour. 

The Grand Line seemed to know their name eventually. It wasn’t big, like the whispers of fear that Donquixote Doflamingo brought with his mirage of a Shichibukai. It was the quiet laughter that came from their companions—the ones they’d left behind in Alabasta and East Blue, or the ones setting sail on the sea. It was a small mutter of breath when the Strawhat flag flapped in the wind, or the alerted Navy admirals when word of their landing reached official ears.

They became this unspoken phenomenon.

(When the sun set on a particularly tiring day, Sanji would set the ladies’ drinks on a table and swipe away that evening’s dishes. Sometimes, Zoro would help. Other times, Sanji would kick him out and Nami would howl at them in anger for starting fights while she was gratuitously trying to map their next course.)

At some point, Luffy began to ask his nakama questions. 

The first one was easy. 

“Are you afraid of things?” Luffy’s hands were caught rubbing at the dent Zoro had made in the table that morning. “You never seem to be.”

“I am.” Robin replied, her smile small and quiet. “There are things everyone is afraid of, Captain.”

“Is it something small? Like spiders? Sanji and Nami hate spiders, y’know. I brought one back once and they wouldn’t stop screaming.” He snickered, slamming his fists on the table. “Don’t tell Nami I laughed.” His expression turned slightly fearful, and Robin marveled at the terror Nami reigned over the men in the ship.

“It’s not spiders.” she said gently, “but it is something quite small. I have a fear of smaller spaces. It’s called claustrophobia.” 

Luffy stuck his tongue out. “Cluck-stro what? Clustro—Claw-tros—Claus—phobia.” He screwed his face up, the scar under his eye stretching as he worked his mouth around the word. “What kind of word is that? Stupid.” 

Robin laughed lightly. “ _Claustrophobia_ , captain. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“I won’t let you deal with them, then.” Luffy looked at her seriously. “I’ll beat up small spaces!” 

“It’s not a physical thing, captain. You can’t beat up a small space. Are you going to slice through the air?”

Luffy grinned. “Well, Zoro can do it.” He tapped his chin as he got up, and Sanji walked in through the kitchen door, plates decked with food in his hands. “I don’t see why I can’t too.”

The second question Luffy asked was to Nami.

“Nami.” He whined, draping his arms over her chair. “Nami, how do you know when the waves are changing?”

Nami grunted. “Leave me alone, Luffy.” 

“But _Nami,_ ” he whined once again, “I’m bored.” 

Nami let out a long sigh. 

“I can feel it.” She said, finally setting her pen down. “It’s like music—or rhythm. It’s the ocean is out of tune, and so when the waves change I know something is wrong.”

Luffy scrunched his nose. “That’s weird. You’re weird Nami.”

“You asked!” She replied, slamming her fist down on his head. Luffy yelped and clutched his hat, scrambling for the door. “It’s not weird! You’re weirder, you stupid rubber!”

The third one was to Zoro.

“Zoro.”

The swordsman did not look up, but he did acknowledge Luffy’s presence somewhat annoyedly. “Luffy,” he replied. “What do you want?”

Luffy stared at him seriously. “How do you fight with a sword?” 

Zoro gaped at him. Luffy hardly expressed his curiosity for other fighting styles—mostly because he was an idiot with rubber-for-brains and could hardly tell the difference. To ask Zoro anything about his swords at all was arguably very surprising. 

“Well,” Zoro replied, “You have to get to know your sword first. You establish a relationship—you learn to trust it.”

Luffy stared at Wado, his eyes bright and intrigued. “Whoa.”

Zoro glanced at him. “My swords are a part of my being.” He patted the three at his side. “It might sound stupid, but they never leave my side because they’ve become a part of my soul.”

Luffy laughed, but he shut his mouth quickly after Zoro shot him his darkest glare. 

“Can I hold one, then?”

The ship fell quiet. Usopp’s steady hammering slowed, Sanji shut off the faucet, Nami dropped her pen, Chopper gaped at him, and Robin glanced upwards from behind her book, an amused smile stretching across her face. 

Zoro’s eyes fixated on Luffy’s. There was a set sort of determination there. If Zoro said no, Luffy would leave and entertain himself with Nami’s tangerines somewhere instead, and Zoro would be free to train again.

Something pulled at him, though.

“Sure.” He replied, unhooking Wado from its sheath and handing it to Luffy. Luffy let the weight settle in his hands and closed his fist around the hilt. It was light and fluid, but slightly heavy—and when Luffy moved to thrust it forward, his movements were clumsy.

Zoro had expected that, though. 

“Cool!” Luffy said finally, the same shit-eating grin spreading across his face. “Your sword is funny, Zoro.”

Zoro sheathed it again and rested his head against the banister of the ship. “It’s not.” He replied. “You’re just an idiot.”

The re-occurring event of Luffy interrogating his nakama became like breathing. Luffy would ask Sanji to teach him how to cook meat, or ask Robin to teach him how to read. (This made Nami fall out of her seat, but they were interrupted by Zoro not much later, and Luffy distracted himself with the prospect of a new island.) Once, Luffy asked Usopp to teach him how to repair the Merry, and it had ended with Luffy howling as he hammered his fingers for the fourth time in a row.

Luffy’s favorite visits seemed to be to Chopper.

Chopper let Luffy run wild with bandages and experiment with new medicines—he let Luffy pick him up and set him on his shoulders, or throw him into the air and catch him like he was a ball. 

Once, Zoro injured himself.

The crew seemed to have a cloud of doubt hang over them, because Zoro was strong and stubborn and utterly imbecilic, and he was laying in his bed, his chest heaving, as Chopper dabbed medicine onto his wounds.

They took shifts watching him. 

“You’re stupid.” Sanji said. “Hurry up and heal. The dishes aren’t gonna wash themselves.”

“You still owe me about three-fourths of that debt.” Nami said. “You get better soon.”

“Does it hurt a lot?” Usopp asked, clutching the edge of the seat. “Not that I’m scared or anything.”

“Zoro!” Luffy snickered. “Look what I can do with my eyes!” And he proceeded to pull his eye bags down the length of his face and let them sag like pockets. 

At the end of the day, Zoro rubbed his temples and grumbled about “useless nakama,” and “loud-ass rubber captains.” with some sort of circulating fondness wrapped around his heart.

He dreamed of the Merry on wheels, rolling down the roads of a city where Mihawk’s mansion sat in the distance.

“All sails ahead!” Dream-Luffy cried, and Dream-Nami smacked him on the head. 

“Idiot.” Dream-Zoro said, messing up his hair. “We don’t have any need for sails.” 

Somewhere along the way, Luffy’s nakama had found a second family on the Merry.

They hadn’t realized it until much later—that for some odd reason, even without having stepped foot out of bed, they knew where each of their nakama would be that day. Where they would sit at the table, where they would bathe in the sun, where they would fight and laugh and celebrate as new islands poked across the horizon.

It was the way that Sanji knew what kind of food each of them liked, or the way Zoro knew when to vacate the deck so that Robin could tend to her flowers, or the way Usopp knew to fold the bandages so that Chopper didn’t have to work harder. It was the way Nami knew to snip the unripened tangerines so that Luffy didn’t steal the wrong ones, or the way Luffy knew to leave Chopper alone when the sun set and he would gaze at the cherry blossoms encased under a glass in his room.

It was the way the Strawhat pirates knew that their captain would always come back for them—and that he was the next Pirate King, that he would rule the seas and etch his name like fire across the waters. 

(If asked what Luffy was, they’d all have a coherent and similar reply.

“He’s an idiot.” They’d say. “But he’s our idiot, you know.”)

Unknowingly, Sanji, Nami, Zoro, Robin, Usopp, and Chopper had found a family and a home in a boy made of rubber who never knew when to give up.

(“Luffy.” Shanks said, setting his straw hat down on Makino’s polished bar table one morning. “Will you become a pirate?”

“I will!” He shrieked, hopping onto the bar stool. “Watch me!”

“Then, Luffy,” he said more seriously, “You must remember this. Your nakama, your companions—they are more important than any gold or treasure.”

Luffy gazed at him. 

“If your nakama trust you, Luffy, if they really, truly trust you, then that is greater than any treasure you could ever hope to collect.”)


End file.
